This file contains guidelines and advice for someone who is the maintainer of a GNU program on behalf of the GNU Project. Everyone is entitled to change and redistribute GNU software; you need not pay attention to this file to get permission. But if you want to maintain a version for widespread distribution, we suggest you follow these guidelines. If you would like to be a GNU maintainer, then it is essential to follow these guidelines.
In addition to this document, please read and follow the GNU Coding Standards (see Contents).
If you want to receive diffs for every change to these GNU documents,
join the mailing list gnustandards-commit@gnu.org, via the web
interface at
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustandards-commit.
Archives are also available there.
Please send corrections or suggestions for this document to bug-standards@gnu.org. If you make a suggestion, please include a suggested new wording for it, to help us consider the suggestion efficiently. We prefer a context diff to the maintain.texi file, but if you don't have that file, you can make a context diff for some other version of this document, or propose it in any way that makes it clear.
If you have general questions or encounter a situation where it isn't clear what to do, you can ask mentors@gnu.org, which is a list of a few experienced GNU contributors who have offered to answer questions for new maintainers.
The directory /gd/gnuorg mentioned throughout this document is
found on the GNU file server, currently fencepost.gnu.org; if
you are the maintainer of a GNU package, you should have an account
there. See http://www.gnu.org/software/README.accounts.html if
you don't have one. (You can also ask for accounts for people who
help you a large amount in working on the package.)
If on occasion you find that any GNU computer systems
(fencepost.gnu.org, ftp.gnu.org,
savannah.gnu.org, or others) seem to be down, you can check the
current status at http://identi.ca/group/fsfstatus. Most likely
the problem, if it is at the FSF end, is already being worked on.
This document uses the gender-neutral third-person pronouns “person”, “per”, “pers” and “perself” which were promoted, and perhaps invented, by Marge Piercy in Woman on the Edge of Time. They are used just like “she”, “her”, “hers” and “herself”, except that they apply equally to males and females. For example, “Person placed per new program under the GNU GPL, to let the public benefit from per work, and to enable per to feel person has done the right thing.”
This release of the GNU Maintenance Instructions was last updated November 20, 2009.